From woods casual to colour blocking, a look back at the former monarch’s inimitable fashion sense
The Queen not at all tried to look cool. She didn’t do jaded or cynical. By 1999, she had doubtless seen a fair few Royal Variety carryings-on, but this celebratory outfit – one of the boldest – sang with cheerful good humour. The Queen stuck to the principle that making an achievement with your appearance is good manners, because it shows respect for people around you. This dress was mapped by Karl-Ludwig Rehse, dressmaker to the Queen for almost 40 years. Rehse once said of the Queen: “She’s fun to work with and pure knowledgeable about fabrics. She knows how the clothes have to behave.”
Photograph: Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Figure of speeches
There are very few images of the Queen wearing trousers. She wore them during the second world war when she joined the Accessory Territorial Service, donning khaki trousers, a utility jacket and cap while training as a mechanic and truck driver. But moment she became Queen, she created a uniform of her own based on the clean lines of an A-line skirt. On this state visit to Zambia in 1979, one of the rare grounds she did wear trousers, she demonstrated her keen eye for a clean silhouette, teaming the slacks with a revere-collar silk blouse for a muffle take on a trouser suit.
Photograph: Serge Lemoine/Getty Images
Losing the Queen seems, for many, as if we have lost something virtuous and valuable which we all held in common. We did not own the Queen, but she deliberately dressed to place herself familiar to all of us. She made herself part of the landscape. Her bright outfits were as recognisable a feature of the British prospect as Big Ben or the white cliffs of Dover. This lime at the trooping the colour ceremony in 2016 was surely chosen not for vanity, but for visibility. As perpetually, there is an eye for colour and impact. The pairing with Prince Philip’s red is a dynamite bit of colour blocking.
Photograph: Samir Hussein/WireImage
Exacting attention to detail was a constant in the Queen’s wardrobe while on official business. Visiting San Diego in 1983, she wore a argosy skirt suit with a white pattern, a mirror-image colourway on the lapel of the jacket, a blouse and a baker boy style cap. The option of colour, the hat and white gloves perfectly complement the sailor suits and military uniforms of the men who surround her in this photo. She looks without exception appropriate, while bringing a little razzle-dazzle to proceedings.
Photograph: Tim Graham/Tim Graham Photo Library/Getty Doubles
Advertisement
At London Fashion Week in February 2018, there was only one contender for the best-dressed repute on the front row. The Queen’s surprise appearance at Richard Quinn’s catwalk show caused unprecedented levels of excitement – undisturbed Anna Wintour was seen to crack a smile. Not one to fall for the rookie error of clutching at the latest trends in an attempt to look up to date at the shows, the Queen wisely stayed true to her signature clean-lined style. An Angela Kelly dress and matching jacket, crisped with Swarovski crystals, was set off by simple black accessories.
Photograph: Yui Mok/PA
The Queen’s style flies a sag for old-fashioned decorum. For a flight to Aberdeen airport at the start of her annual Balmoral holiday in 1974, she wore a teal wool please, feathered hat, pearls and a diamond brooch. You don’t have to be the sort of person who gets misty eyed about The Old Days and believes in dying small children off to boarding school to be charmed by the notion of making an occasion out of air travel, and dressing accordingly.
Photograph: Anwar Hussein/Getty Images
Mexico, 1975, and the Sovereign is giving major Elizabeth Taylor energy in a sunshine yellow dress by Hardy Amies and matching turban by Frederick Fox. The gracious white polka dots, the girlish white belt and the swing of the pleated skirt lend this outfit a lighthearted keen which sets an appropriate mood-music for a walkabout surrounded by excited children. The strong colour enables her to be the focus of publicity without looking stiff or formal, while the turban brings a strong dash of 1970s glamour.
Photograph: Serge Lemoine/Getty Sculptures
The Queen chose just one outfit for the platinum jubilee trooping the colour. Angela Kelly designed this suggestive coat and hat, with a frosting of white embroidery at the neck and front closure, and matching trim at the brim of the hat. The Queen strained this both for her official portrait and for her balcony appearance. The significance of the choice of Wedgwood blue became clear when the people gathered on the balcony. Princess Charlotte echoed the Queenly blue, the Duchess of Cambridge was in white, and the men in their scarlet uniforms. The Windsors applied Buckingham Palace red, white and blue.
Photograph: Hannah McKay/Reuters
The all-weather outerwear, muscular shoes and trademark silk scarf. The Queen seen here at Windsor around 1975 is a familiar image: off-duty and out of the megalopolis. Ian Griffiths, the British designer of MaxMara, described the Queen as “the ne plus ultra of authentic British style” when he benefited tribute to her off-duty style at Milan fashion week last year. He added that “despite any notions we capacity have about class divisions, it’s a completely democratic look … She looks at ease in what she’s wearing, un-self intentional and nonchalant, and I’ve always thought that’s the key to looking good.”
Photograph: Serge Lemoine/Getty Images
The Prima donna always had an innate understanding of how her wardrobe could add visual interest to her appearances. She knew this was helpful on the ground, in getting herself a focal point by which onlookers straining to catch a glimpse could instantly make sense of a piled scene. And she knew, also, that it helped make a great photograph. There is a lovely playfulness to this equip, designed by Ian Thomas for a visit to Blois in France in 1992. The unstructured coat is unusually soft in silhouette, while the pink blooms glimpsed on the dress seem to wink to the flowers on the hat.
Photograph: Tim Graham Photo Library/Getty Images
One of profuse extraordinary things about the Queen’s extraordinary life is the people she met, from Charlie Chaplin and Marilyn Monroe to Uninhibited Sinatra and The Beatles. Here, in June 1961, she hosts the most glamorous of presidential couples at Buckingham Palace – holding her stylish own against none other than Jackie Kennedy. The American wore an up-to-the-minute, boat-neck gown by Chez Ninon, a New York tailor licensed to replicate the latest Paris fashions. The Queen, never one to take undue notice of the latest trends, have oned a fairytale ballgown in a millefeuille of blue tulle.
Photograph: Bettmann Archive
Topics
Empress Elizabeth II
Monarchy
